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eBay doesn't stop the sales of leased 24s or any other model. Their enforcement of their own rules is pitiful.

Rich

True. Usually the wronged party has to notify eBay a couple of times before they'll take it down. In eBay's defense, with so many transactions, they're not going to catch all of them. Buying anything used is caveat emptor.

Sure you can do whatever you want with it, but you should be careful selling it to someone else. Like has been said before, DirecTV will not ativate these receivers on anyone else's account.

Think about it, if they did it could end up costing them a lot of money. You sold your HR20 to someone else. He activates it on his account. Two weeks later he calls DirecTV and tells them it's broken, so they send him a replacement for free (or $20 for shipping). They don't want the HR20 back so he sells it to his buddy. His buddy activates it and then 2 weeks later calls DirecTV and says it's broken. They send him a replacement for free. He sells it to his buddy ..........

When DirecTV says they don't want it back and you can do whatever you want with it they mean you can keep it, throw it away, recycle it, shoot it with a shotgun, launch it into space with a catapult, etc. They do not want you selling it to someone else, unless it is just to use for parts.

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
-by Jack Handy

While the "abandoned property" rule might apply to title, I think it is stretch to think that it applies to activation for service. True, the "abandonded" HR20 may now "belong" to you, and you can do whatever you want with it, DirecTV is under no obligation to activate it for anyone. The act of abandoning it says that they have declared the unit to be at "end of life" and of no significant value. What units they activate is, and always has been, a matter of their discretion. They could even refuse to activate receivers that have always been "owned" if they change hands. That they do activate them is a good thing, but I don't see any contractual obligation or implied warranty on their part to do so. When you purchase a "non-leased" device DirecTV is not a party to the transaction, and so there is no guarantee, express or implied, that is conveyed along with the device.

Sure you can do whatever you want with it, but you should be careful selling it to someone else. Like has been said before, DirecTV will not ativate these receivers on anyone else's account.

Think about it, if they did it could end up costing them a lot of money. You sold your HR20 to someone else. He activates it on his account. Two weeks later he calls DirecTV and tells them it's broken, so they send him a replacement for free (or $20 for shipping). They don't want the HR20 back so he sells it to his buddy. His buddy activates it and then 2 weeks later calls DirecTV and says it's broken. They send him a replacement for free. He sells it to his buddy ..........

When DirecTV says they don't want it back and you can do whatever you want with it they mean you can keep it, throw it away, recycle it, shoot it with a shotgun, launch it into space with a catapult, etc. They do not want you selling it to someone else, unless it is just to use for parts.

Look, I explicitly asked about selling it, or giving it away. They said, it's yours to do what you want. I sold it on ebay, the buyer requested a new card and activated it, no muss no fuss.

While the "abandoned property" rule might apply to title, I think it is stretch to think that it applies to activation for service. True, the "abandonded" HR20 may now "belong" to you, and you can do whatever you want with it, DirecTV is under no obligation to activate it for anyone. The act of abandoning it says that they have declared the unit to be at "end of life" and of no significant value. What units they activate is, and always has been, a matter of their discretion. They could even refuse to activate receivers that have always been "owned" if they change hands. That they do activate them is a good thing, but I don't see any contractual obligation or implied warranty on their part to do so. When you purchase a "non-leased" device DirecTV is not a party to the transaction, and so there is no guarantee, express or implied, that is conveyed along with the device.

If the HR20 is end of life, why did D* recently give it a software update? If it has no significant value, why can people sell it for $100?

The reason they don't want to activate previously leased units is for profit only. Not that that's a bad thing, as they are a for profit company, but let's not sugarcoat it.

D* doesn't want ANY owned units period. It wants to take the depreciation of its leased units as a tax write off. The more owned units there are out there, the less leased units there must be.

However, it's illegal to not provide an option to buy a box. So D* offers an outrageous price to buy the box, coupled with the policy of activating as few of them as it possibly can, and also by charging an additional service fee for each owned box that just so happens to match the lease fee. FYI, most of this behavior is illegal for cable providers, but the FCC has temporarily waived enforcement of these laws for DBS systems for now.

I totally agree that abandoned property laws does NOT apply to the service -- the previous service was cancelled and no longer exists. However, D* is dangerously flirting with the FCC. They have to be careful not to make them angry.

It gets updates because it shares a lot of code with the other units. The H20 doesn't really get updates (other than maybe some small fixes) because it was quite different from the other devices, didn't support the new GUI etc. They don't give out R22s anymore, but those get updates as well.

It gets updates because it shares a lot of code with the other units. The H20 doesn't really get updates (other than maybe some small fixes) because it was quite different from the other devices, didn't support the new GUI etc. They don't give out R22s anymore, but those get updates as well.

So all those boxes you mentioned are still supported as well, and it should be possible to activate any of them. Not only do they work, but most of them are still getting software updates. That's not EOL behavior at all -- in fact it's quite the opposite. It's not like the old EPG boxes, which simply won't work as designed in the near future.

Besides, the easy remedy for D* is to ask for all its boxes back regardless of age and not abandon any of them in the first place.

It is possible to activate any of them, if they were not leased models that had already been tied to an account. The only ones that cannot be activated on a new account even owned are boxes that don't have an RID or EPG units.

We had a Genie and client installed on 02/26/13. The tech took the HR20-700 and the R15. I asked about keeping the HR20 and using at my mother's house. (She has an HDTV in her bedroom, but is connected to an SD box). I was told they were retrieving them.

We had a Genie and client installed on 02/26/13. The tech took the HR20-700 and the R15. I asked about keeping the HR20 and using at my mother's house. (She has an HDTV in her bedroom, but is connected to an SD box). I was told they were retrieving them.

He lied. D* does not want them back. What he did was take it and sold it to some other unsuspecting idiot that now has a new boat anchor.

It is true you can buy it, sell it, shoot it with shotgun, or shoot it into space, but what you CANNOT do is activate it on someone else's account.

He lied. D* does not want them back. What he did was take it and sold it to some other unsuspecting idiot that now has a new boat anchor.

Not true at all. Techs are supposed to recover all receivers regardless if DirecTV wants them or not. Once a receiver is swapped, that receiver now goes to the tech's inventory and must be returned to the warehouse where it would be disposed appropiately

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels.
The the troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things different.
They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo.

True. Usually the wronged party has to notify eBay a couple of times before they'll take it down. In eBay's defense, with so many transactions, they're not going to catch all of them. Buying anything used is caveat emptor.

Sure you can do whatever you want with it, but you should be careful selling it to someone else. Like has been said before, DirecTV will not ativate these receivers on anyone else's account.

Think about it, if they did it could end up costing them a lot of money. You sold your HR20 to someone else. He activates it on his account. Two weeks later he calls DirecTV and tells them it's broken, so they send him a replacement for free (or $20 for shipping). They don't want the HR20 back so he sells it to his buddy. His buddy activates it and then 2 weeks later calls DirecTV and says it's broken. They send him a replacement for free. He sells it to his buddy ..........

When DirecTV says they don't want it back and you can do whatever you want with it they mean you can keep it, throw it away, recycle it, shoot it with a shotgun, launch it into space with a catapult, etc. They do not want you selling it to someone else, unless it is just to use for parts.

I just sold a deactivated 20-700 and called ACT and made sure it could be activated. It was listed as owned and I was given the go-ahead to sell it. I did own it for several years. I don't think you can do that with a leased unit unless it was on your account in the first place and you just want to reactivate it.

Apparently, the sale and activation worked or you'd be hearing about it...

While the "abandoned property" rule might apply to title, I think it is stretch to think that it applies to activation for service. True, the "abandonded" HR20 may now "belong" to you, and you can do whatever you want with it, DirecTV is under no obligation to activate it for anyone. The act of abandoning it says that they have declared the unit to be at "end of life" and of no significant value. What units they activate is, and always has been, a matter of their discretion. They could even refuse to activate receivers that have always been "owned" if they change hands. That they do activate them is a good thing, but I don't see any contractual obligation or implied warranty on their part to do so. When you purchase a "non-leased" device DirecTV is not a party to the transaction, and so there is no guarantee, express or implied, that is conveyed along with the device.

My guess is the reason DirecTV doesn't want you to ship them back is it ends up costing them money.

Say it costs DirecTV $10 to ship an empty box to you, and then $20 to ship the box with the receiver back to them. Then they have to pay another $5 to ship it from their warehouse to the recycling company (cheaper cause they probably ship pallets at a time). That means they just spent $35 getting the receiver to the recycler. If the receycler only pays them $20 then they just did a bunch of work and ended up losing $15. That doesn't make sense so they just tell you to do whatever you want with it (meaning throw it away, recycle it, etc.).

However if you already have a tech at your house, that tech can take the receiver back with him to his warehouse. It then goes on a pallet with other dead receivers that get shipped back to DirecTV for refurbishing or recycling, maybe that costs them $5/unit to ship. Then they put that old receiver on another pallet that goes to the recycler and that costs them another $5. So now they just spent $10 to get the receiver to the recycler, and the recycler paid them $20, so they ended up making $10 off it.

Obviously the numbers here are probably not accurate, but the theory is. Plenty of companies do similar things. For example Monoprice, which a lot of us here use for cables etc. If you have an issue with one of their items a lot of the time they tell you just to throw it away or recycle it, and they send you a new one. That's because it would cost them more money to have you ship it back to them then it does to just send you a new one.

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."
-by Jack Handy